So I'm helping my grandfather wade through our family genealogy. According to a ship's roster, two of my ancestors came to New Netherland (New York) in 1638 from England. They had children with them, but the roster doesn't say how many or their names. Family stories that have come down through all these years say that all four of their kids were on the ship with them. We have documentation from an old family Bible, however, that one of them, Ephraim, was born in 1639. So... Did they really have all four kids on the ship? Was Ephraim's birth year in the Bible wrong? Was he born on the ship itself? Did they leave England in 1638 and not arrive in NY until 1639, and maybe Ephraim was born on the ship? Or is it way more probable that the family story about all four kids being on the ship is wrong and Ephraim was born the year after they had arrived in NY? Did ships even sail to the "New World" in late December? Wouldn't that have made it crazy cold and a more difficult voyage? I have tried Google and Ancestry and I just don't know. Any theories on what probably actually happened from those who know colonial history way better than myself? Thanks in advance!
I do a great deal of genealogy, but there is so much to unpack in this question. The main thing about family research is that you must research from the present back to the past and you must go only where the facts lead you and ignore apocryphal stories from family lore.
Don’t let the family Bible be the end all and be all of your research. Depending on where your family settled, it is very possible there are records. For example, Pennsylvania has digitized some township records going back to this period. So has Mass.
You must be willing to discard all of the premises you’ve heard about your family. You have to star with yourself and go backward, using primary sources like census, etc. to verify your work. Do the direct and other lines since you are trying to track four alleged siblings.
It is very difficult to dive in to genealogy from the oldest known part of your line. In fact, you should never do that.
Some possible things I can recommend you look for when you get to the point of verifying the ship travel info:
1.) search repositories like the American Antiquarian Society and similar east coast repositories for diaries of the period. Someone on the ship probably kept a diary; perhaps it survived. Check for memoirs of people who came the same year, perhaps they came on the same ship. A birth on a ship is something that might get mentioned in either work.
2.) check indexes of heraldry societies like Colonial Dames when you get to that point. Someone may have already made the connections but you still MUST verify with primary sources.
3.) the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and their research library, family history centers, and familysearch.org are excellent resources.